Repartee
by Ahlidarma
Summary: Untold stories from those close to the Normandy. Each chapter is a different creative writing exercise. (Rating for coarse language, mature themes; all rights belong to Bioware) NEWEST: Benezia will miss her daughter.
1. The Crucible

_Shepard and Vega discuss the Crucible (ME3)._

_Chapter Rating: T (for language)  
__Friendship/Angst_

_James V./Shepard (F)_

* * *

Vega paced back and forth in the cargo hold, restless. Normandy was on its way back to the Citadel for the usual. The crew was going to squeeze in some shore leave while Shepard ran her errands. Minor repairs had to be made to the ship, and they needed to restock their dextro supplies after having all those quarians on board. Vega was glad they got their homeworld back, but thinking about it made him angry and homesick.

He couldn't believe they started a war in the middle of _another_ god damn war.

They were barely out of the Perseus Veil, and they had the entire span of the galaxy to travel. Consequently, he had a lot of time to think. And therefore be angry. And homesick. So he was pacing.

He decided he could pace better with some alcohol in his system.

Which is how Vega found himself in the elevator, toeing its closed doors as he waited to arrive on the Crew Deck. It was pretty late. Early. Whatever. It wasn't time for anyone to be walking around the ship, which was good, because he wasn't going to make very good company right now.

So when he saw Shepard's form folded over the smaller table in the mess hall, he almost just turned straight around and left. He didn't really feel like chatting. He was irritable and she was clearly exhausted. She had collapsed on top of a heap of datapads, her crossed arms offering dubious comfort against their hard angles. But Vega felt guilty as the thought of escape crossed his mind. He should at least get her to her room, he thought, instead of leaving her crumpled over a table like that. He didn't really want to babysit his commander, but it was one small thing he could do for the woman protecting the galaxy. He cleared his throat as he approached her side of the table.

"¿Qué pasa?" he asked her loudly.

He had thought he was loud enough to wake her up, but she didn't stir. When he got closer, he could tell she was fitful. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and her hands kept clenching at irregular intervals. She looked _way_ too tense to still be managing to stay asleep.

She snapped her head up when he shook her, gasping in a huge breath.

"Relax, Lola, it's just me."

A baritone voice and a firm grip on her shoulder drew Shepard out of the vestiges of her nightmare. She found Vega's tanned face towering over her shoulder. She tried to speak, but her tongue was too dry to form words. She nodded instead, coughing a few times to clear the sleep from her throat. She rolled her neck and stretched out her back as Vega walked around to the opposite side of the table. His step was just a little too heavy to describe the sound his boot heels made as a "click."

"So…what were you working on?" Vega asked, lowering himself into a seat. He motioned with his chin to the small pile of datapads she had collected in front of her.

She scoffed, pushing the one she had been examining before she fell asleep across the table to him.

"The key to our ultimate victory," she said in a pseudo-mysterious voice, widening her eyes and wiggling her fingers for added effect. Vega snorted out a laugh. Shepard scrubbed her face with her hands, her elbows resting on the mess table.

" 'Ultimate victory?' " he echoed, wiggling his fingers just like the Commander did. She shot him a narrow-eyed look between her fingers. He pretended not to see it, reaching over to drag the datapad closer so he could inspect it. He closed one eye, craning his neck to one side, willing the Crucible schematics to make sense.

"Very impressive," he said, for lack of anything better. Shepard huffed out a noncommittal breath. He craned his neck the other way, to see if that made it any easier to decode. It didn't.

"What the hell _is_ it?" he finally asked. He hesitated to ask Doc about it. Anything Prothean-related caused the asari to launch into passionate speech that Vega had trouble understanding.

"Xenotechnology at its finest, from everything I'm told," Shepard replied, shrugging. She seemed as knowledgeable about it as Vega was. He frowned faintly, squinting at the small print on the datapad's holo-screen.

Shepard regarded the Lieutenant as he struggled over the data. Frankly, she thought, she had no idea what the hell it was, either. Liara seemed convinced that it was a super-weapon of some kind, but she didn't have any answers when Shepard pressed. She was pretty familiar with weapons, and it certainly didn't look like any kind she had ever seen. Although, she was admittedly less well-versed on weapons of mass destruction. Anything that involved engineering was miles over her head.

Shepard ran a hand through her hair, and Vega could see glimpses of orange scars on her scalp before her hair settled back into place. She propped a temple on her fist.

She considered the datapad. The Crucible had to _do_ something in order to be a super-weapon, right? There was no mechanism in the Crucible plans for a projectile, but a weapon had to be dangerous in order to _be_ a weapon. Have the potential to be dangerous. Did it _emit_ something? That seemed more likely, but how did that stop the Reapers? An EMP? That would wipe out all the electronic devices it reached, including a ship's computers. She doubted the Protheans would have overlooked a flaw like that. Something Reaper-specific then? Their code? Anything with Reaper-based code would get demolished? Like the Normandy, thanks to that damned Reaper IFF. Like EDI. And now, the entire geth consensus. Legion sacrificed himself to give his people intelligence, and she honors his memory by working on a weapon that might kill his entire race. She and EDI had talked about it, after Liara had been unable to tell Shepard much of anything. EDI had dedicated many of her programs to the possibility. The AI had alerted the geth about Shepard's concern, and the synthetics were all brainstorming. Knowing that the geth and EDI were working on contingency planning alleviated some of the worry, but…

_But she can still hear his voice, murky and far-away. It echoes strangely, overlapping with the Reapers' war cry. He tells her that it's not justice. It sounds like it's coming from behind her, but when she turns around, she loses sight of the little boy, and it seems like she spends hours trying to find him again. She remembers talking to the Rachni Queen, on Noveria. "Songs the color of oily shadows." That's what it feels like. Being trapped in a sour yellow note. She can't help but wonder if Legion is one of those greasy forms, drifting through her like—_

"You okay?" Vega asked softly, startling Shepard out of her revere. He was looking at her, concern on his broad face. She met his gaze tentatively before looking away. She opened her mouth to say something. Probably that she was fine, thought Vega, which was bullshit.

But she closed her mouth, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She picked at a spot on the table with the hand not holding her head up.

"Zaal'Koris used to be the one we hated dealing with," Shepard said. She glanced at Vega and saw that he hadn't followed. _No surprise there, Shepard_, she thought. _You sound fucking crazy_. She looked back down at the datapad. "At Tali's trial, he was such an ass," she tried to clarify. "Blabbering on and on about how the geth were the children of the quarians and the two species deserved to live in peace."

Shepard tucked her hands under her thighs. She stared off in the direction of the front battery. She spoke quietly, almost to herself.

"Couldn't convince him that it wasn't genocide because the geth were just stupid machines," she told him. "Doesn't that make me a bit of hypocrite, now?"

"Everyone knew the geth were the bad guys, Lola," Vega tried. Her gaze was still fixed towards Normandy's bow . "Finding out later that most of them are actually friendly doesn't change the fact that they sided with the Reapers before."

She laughed, but it wasn't cheerful. "Gee, thanks, Vega."

"How are you supposed to know everything, Commander?"

"It's just…what the hell business do I have being in charge of this war?" She asked him in a terrifyingly small voice.

"Jesus, Shepard—" he began. But what the hell was he supposed to say? The entire fucking galaxy had pinned its hopes on her. He knew she was good, but she was still _human_. Every single living thing was depending on her, and he didn't know any magic words that would make that all better. He ended up just staring at her, silently, dumbfounded. She started to pick up her datapads, avoiding his scrutiny as she stood.

"Killing Reapers is what you do best, Lola," he said, finally, wincing. He knew that wasn't the right thing to say.

Shepard dropped the armful of datapads, sending them clattering loudly to the bench and the floor. She grabbed two fistfuls of her hair, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Likely as not, there're _thousands_ of Reapers, Vega, and I've killed _three_ of them!" Shepard shouted, her voice just starting to rise in hysteria. "Might as well have been none, considering how many people I've managed to _not save!_"

He stood up all at once, slamming his hands on the table. The motion finally drew her attention back to him. He stared her in the eye, _daring_ her to look away.

"No one on this ship has any doubts about you, Commander," he told her flat out, his voice leaving no room for uncertainty. They eyed each other for a few loaded moments, the air in the mess hall practically crackling with the sudden, unexpected tension. He was pretty sure belligerence wasn't the right approach, but it was the one he had awkwardly stumbled onto. He'd _beat_ reassurance into her thick damn skull if he had to.

Finally Shepard sighed, bracing one hand on her hip while her other hand rubbed her forehead. Vega felt himself relax, and he let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. At least she hadn't cried. He didn't know what the hell he would have done if she'd _cried_. Made an ass out of himself, most likely.

"Okay," she said simply. She sounded dead tired, but there wasn't any more insecurity in her voice. He considered that a victory. He gave her a hard look, then nodded. He came around to her side of the table, throwing an arm around her shoulders to give her an affectionate little shake. It was definitely crossing a line, and _way_ more personal than he would have thought he could get away with any other time. Joking about her tits was one thing, but hugging her was something completely different. Still, he didn't think Shepard would mind so much right now. She gave him a worn-out smile with a tiny corner of her mouth.

"Piss off," she said, without heat. She ducked out from under his arm and gave him a half-hearted shove.

Vega ambled over to the cupboard under the sink. He was still restless, and now he was tense too, having spoken so earnestly with the Commander. He fished around for the low-grade bottle of tequila he and Cortez had hidden at the back. Cortez didn't like it, but he could go fuck himself. Booze was booze, in Vega's opinion, and if Cortez wasn't going to cough up some credits to set them up with the good stuff, then he could find someone else to drink with. Like Sparks. He was sure someone on this frigate could figure out a way to get the quarian drunk. It was _filled_ with engineers, after all. And marines. Both were a notoriously industrious people when it came to alcohol.

By the time he made his way back to the table, tequila and two glasses in hand, Shepard had gathered up all of her fallen datapads. He offered her a glass.

Shepard hesitated. She looked down at the datapads in her arms, then at the bottle James held, then at James. She really needed to get some more work done before she called it a night. She had weeks of backlogged data from EDI that she needed to look at. She had reports to file. The Migrant Fleet wanted to be kept up-to-date about the construction of the Crucible, and she had to send them copies of the plans. She had to work herself stupid so that she wouldn't have any more nightmares tonight.

Vega shook the bottle of tequila at her, raising his eyebrows, and her face cracked into a reluctant grin. She dumped the datapads back down on the table, swiping the booze out of his hand. She took a long pull, straight from the bottle.

Vega chuckled as he sat back down.

* * *

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
__**Alphabet Dialogue:** e__ach subsequent line of dialogue (each set of closed quotation marks) starts with the next letter of the alphabet. Starting with Q, because hey, why not?_

_For anyone wondering, I started writing with "X" and wrote forwards and backwards from there. "P" was the hardest letter to come up with. Who'd've thunk? Anyway, __I wrote this to help me work on my dialogue. It turned out to be really fun (seriously, it's a ton of fun. Try it!). Let me know what you think! __If I hadn't told you it was the alphabet, would you have noticed? Feel free to offer a prompt or another literary exercise!_

_Thanks for reading!_


	2. Commlink

_Solik Vass tries to interview the Commander after the war (post ME3)._

_Chapter Rating: K+ (for mild language and major fluff)  
Family/Humor_

_Solik Vass/Shepard (F)_

* * *

"…mm…H-hello?"

"I'm…so terribly sorry. Were you sleeping?"

"…What?"

"I apologize, I didn't mean to wake—"

"Hellooo!"

"Um…Hello—"

"Hey, I've already got the link, kiddo—"

"Hellooo? Mommy, is that you?"

"Hang up the link, squirt. I've got it—"

"Hi! Okay! I—oh, hi Daddy!…huh?…Oh, okay! Bye!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were busy. I can call back—"

"—rrus, it's fine, really…No, I—_hi_ sweetie—no, it's fine…I've already answered it—"

"…Hello? Is anyone there?"

"…"

"Hello?"

"Yeah, hi. Sorry about that."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't realize I was interrupting, Commander—_Admiral!_ Oh—"

"It's fine. "Commander" is fine. Who is this?"

"I-I apologize. I didn't realize that you would be asleep this time of the day, Adm…um…Commander."

"I was just napping."

"Oh. Yes, of course."

"—is this?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Sorry. That was a yawn. Who is this?"

"Vass. Solik Vass. We met—"

"How did you get this address?"

"What?"

"How did you get this address? This is a private link. Not only—yeah, I see it, kiddo. Go show your dad—Not only that, it's heavily encrypted."

"Yes, well—"

"So how did you get the address for it?"

"I ah…received the information through the Shadow Broker."

"…"

"…Hello? Are you still there?"

"The Shadow Broker?"

"Yes."

"I see."

"I…realize that that was a subversive tactic, but you were not responding to my requests to contact you."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't just you. I ignore all requests for interviews. _What_, kiddo?...No, we can go later."

"Well, you see—"

"What did you say your name was, again?"

"Solik Vass."

"The…documentary maker?"

"Yes. As I was saying before, we met on the Citadel during the war."

"So…what, you want to make another one? I'm not interested."

"But I—"

"What did you tell the Broker?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What did you tell the Broker, when you asked for this address?"

"I…ah…never actually spoke directly with the Shadow Broker. All contact was conducted through a drell agent."

"Of course it was."

"…Excuse me?"

"Nothing. Nevermi—hey! Don't pull your sister's mandible!…Well I don't care!…Because I'm your mother and I said so!…Sorry."

"…"

"Hello? Vass?"

"Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were talking to—"

"The Shadow Broker knows I don't do interviews about the war."

"Well, it's not about the Reaper War, exactly."

"Then what's it—_Urz!_ Dammit, not in the house!"

"Commander?"

"—many times do varren have to be housebroken—"

"Hello?"

"—to God Urz, you're lucky you're so damned adorable, you little—"

"Commander, I—"

"—op _laughing_, Vakarian! They're half _yours_—"

"Perhaps I should try back later…?"

"—'ve told you that word's only for grown-ups and quarians—"

"Commander, are you there?"

"—side Urz—"

"Hello?"

"…"

"Commander?"

"…"

"Commander!"

"…"

"I…really?"

"…"

"_Hello?_"

"…Hellooo!"

"Is…is your mother there?"

"No, she's outside—"

"—Urz had an accident because _someone_ fed him qehve—"

"—I _did not!_—"

"—Did too! I _saw_ you!"

"Can you put your mother on the link for me?"

"Why?"

"I want to ask her some questions."

"About what?"

"Well…about what life is like after the war."

"Ooh! We know all about—"

"—Mommy saved the universe!—"

"—Shut up! _I'm_ telling the story—"

"—You're such a bosh'tet—"

"—Nuh-uh—"

"—We can tell you all about it!"

"You can?"

"Yeah! Our older brother's a big krogan! And—and—"

"—Our Auntie's a spaceship!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! And—"

* * *

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
__**Dialogue Only:**__ it's probably __really hard__ to tell, but this story was written using only dialogue. I know. Your minds are totally blown right now._

_Anyway…I tried to make it more challenging (and interesting?) by using more than two speakers. Let me know what you think! As before, I'd welcome any prompts or challenges (or critiques) you may have!_

_Thanks for reading!_


	3. Hands

_Garrus likes lots of things about Shepard, but he likes her hands especially (ME3)._

_Chapter Rating: T (for language and mild suggestive themes)  
Friendship/Romance_

_Garrus V./Shepard (F)_

* * *

It was almost completely dark in Shepard's cabin when her door finally slid open, the eezo discharge from FTL flickering outside her skylight.

Ah. She must be asleep, then.

Shepard liked to sleep with the lights on—easier to wake up from a nightmare that way—but Joker and Chakwas weren't the only ones who mothered their commander. EDI had devoted a significant number of processes to keeping tabs on her, too, and she made sure to turn the lights down once Shepard was asleep. Humans needed more sleep than Turians did, and it was easier to get when it was dark. Chakwas said it was because of…a rhythm, or something? Who knows. Shepard didn't think it was thoughtful, though. She found it annoying (because she was "Commander-Fucking-Shepard, and she didn't need a god damned babysitter!"), but it didn't stop EDI from checking in on her anyway.

The AI had even been known to lock Shepard out of the Normandy's systems whenever her metabolic scans spiked into the red for too long.

Of course, this _was_ Commander-Fucking-Shepard, and you didn't exactly describe her with the same words that you used for other humans. Or krogan. You used words normally reserved for natural disasters, or…discovering new planets. Supernovas. Things like that. When _Shepard_ spiked into the red, her implants shorted and her organs started to fail. Last time that happened it was her spinal cybernetics that went and she was paralyzed from the waist down for two days. EDI had kept her locked out of the systems for a full week after they came back online.

Shepard had been…what was the phrase? Stir-crazy? She had been stir-crazy the whole week, and had worked up quite a bit of…tension…and—

Well. There were _some_ benefits to EDI's protectiveness, if it meant that Shepard had needed to…ah…_relax_ for a week straight.

…She really was _very_ flexible.

The dull glow of the deck lighting barely penetrated the darkness in her cabin. Even the fish tank was dimmed down to its lowest setting, casting soft blue light that only reached a handspan away from the glass. Any farther out and the shadows took over the room, but it was a familiar space.

Four steps in from the doorway to get past the bathroom wall. Two steps to the right and you were at the hamster cage. His food was on the bottom shelf, but Shepard probably didn't even know it was there; she wasn't good with pets. The crew took bets on how long each new fish of hers would last. One step forward to Shepard's desk. Three steps backwards to clear her display wall. Two steps right to the top of the stairs. Three steps down. Now, just six steps straight ahead to reach the bedside—

_Dammit!_

—lamp. Unless of course Shepard left her armor lying around on the floor after the last mission. If she did, then it was four steps to her armor locker, one step to bash a talon on her greaves—which, despite being classified as medium-protection armor, were a lot heavier than you would think—and two short limps to the switch.

On its lowest setting, with the shade tilted towards the ship's hull, the lamp shed enough light to be able to make out Shepard passed out on the couch, asleep in the middle of some weapons maintenance. Her arm hung over the edge of the couch, her knuckles brushing the floor. The oil she had been using to clean her guns with had settled into the crevices between her fingers and the wrinkles on her palm.

Humans said that you could tell a lot about a person from their hands. How old they were. What they liked to do for fun. Their line of work. Back at C-Sec, there had been an entire course that had focused on reading human suspects by studying their hands. They were one of the most expressive parts of a human's anatomy, but one of the parts they were least likely to be aware of. Turians didn't pay too much attention to them. They were _there_, sure, but they weren't anything special. They were just tools, useful for eating and shooting and, you know, calibrating with.

Most species thought the five-digit hand was off-putting, only slightly less alien than hair and external ears because of the asari and batarians. They didn't think they were appealing, and they certainly didn't find them _attractive_.

But Shepard's…

Shepard's hands were fascinating. They were like everything else about her: slender, pliant, deceptively strong. Elegant, but Spirits help you if she ever found out you thought so. Broken. Healed. Scarred.

She was missing the last segment of her little finger on her left hand. It wasn't something people noticed until they had been around her for some time, and it always took them by surprise to know it happened over a year ago, on Zeona. Turians didn't do well in the cold, and it was cold there. Really, _really_ cold. So cold that Shepard lost the tip of a finger to frostbite. She only ever complained about it when she had to get her left gauntlets modified, though.

She used to have a tattoo. Script on the inside of her wrist. It, and the scars Shepard had collected from thirty (twenty-eight?) years of hard living, had been erased when Cerberus brought her back. Shepard never told anyone what the tattoo meant, but then again, no one had ever asked. Most people tended to assume that she was a very private person.

Her knuckles stood out, bony from years of military training and from bending her fingers backward until her joints popped. Spidery purple veins were distinct under her skin on the backs of her hands, and on the meat at the base of her thumbs. She couldn't straighten her right one out all the way, and Lawson had always found the proof of Project Lazarus's _almost_ perfection to be personally offensive.

Shepard's fingers, cracked at the nail beds and callused at the tips, were stained a faint yellow from her cigarettes. Her fingernails were all cut at different lengths, and white at their very edges. She only trimmed the nails that were broken, so she rarely cut them all at once. She liked to drum her fingers on the table, or her desk, or whatever was around, whenever she was considering war data, so that the nails that grew past her fingertips clicked on the hard surfaces. Ten fingers made it almost mesmerizing to watch her type up mission reports on her terminal, fingers flying over the keys in a way that was almost like a dance.

Shepard fidgeted on the couch. The light from the bedside lamp, while not bright, was evidently enough to disturb her sleep. She let out a crabby little grunt before turning over to hide her face against the back of the cushions. It was adorable, but you didn't accuse _Commander Shepard_ of being cute without choking on your teeth when she punched them in.

There was a reclining chair, comfortable for turian cowls, to be found in the dark four—careful—steps back towards the stairs, and two steps to the left.

Well, comfortable except for whatever the hell little hard thing was on the seat.

Ah. Nail polish.

Once, back when there was some downtime during our mission against the Collectors, Shepard painted her fingernails Palaven Blue. It matched the Vakarian marks perfectly, and Tali teased her about it for days.

Shepard never did it again, but that hadn't stopped Kasumi from giving her little bottles of it constantly.

* * *

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
__**Reluctant "I":**__ a first-person narrative that uses a first-person pronoun only once._

_This one was actually pretty hard for me. I tried to make it obvious that it was first-person without just using my one pronoun right away. But I don't know. First-person is __not__ my cup of tea. What do you think? Is it too jarring to be at the end? Questions, comments, critiques, prompts, links to funny videos, riddles, etc. are always welcome! This series is to help me write stronger, so don't be shy!_

_And thank you, dear Sir and/or Madam, for reading._


	4. Little Wing

_Benezia will miss her daughter (ME1)._

_Chapter Rating: K+ (for hints of mortality)  
Hurt/Comfort_

_Benezia/Liara T'Soni_

* * *

...there's supposed to be a light.

They've always said there would be a light, but you don't see it.

You can taste the tang of ozone in the air when you breathe. The hum of the labs vibrate against your palms, and you can feel the presence of the Queen at your back. You can see lights—from the overhead fixtures, and from the armor of your fallen commandoes—but none of them have a sense of finality to them. Only... regret.

You keep trying, because you think, if you can't find it, you won't be able to let go. You don't want to hurt people anymore, to be trapped in your own mind, listening to its whispers and wondering if it's really your own thoughts you're hearing. You don't want to imagine what she must think of you now, after a century of trying to convince her that violence wasn't how the asari should make their place in the galaxy. You don't want to worry whether or not one human can fix everything you've broken.

You don't want to remember how seductive his words became, with his talons at your throat and the light of the machines in his eyes.

So you keep trying. But your vision keeps getting taken up by her face, beautiful and sad, and it reminds you of the last time you made her cry.

You remember how angry you were, and embarrassed, at the damage she had managed to do to the Embassy lawn. You remember how coarse your voice was when you finished scolding her, and how she held her breath.

You remember the way her tears washed the dirt from her cheeks.

You remember how quiet she was when you found her the next day, eating sweet berries with small fingers, and how her eyes lit up when you showed her the pictures in the book. You remember the way her little hands left sticky fingerprints on the edges, and the sweet taste of her mouth when she kissed you. You remember the purple stains she left on your dress, and how you thought they suited its color.

You told yourself that you'd never do anything to make her cry again.

But...

Her tears are all you can see now.

So you think, maybe, if you can let go, she can stop crying. It won't hurt anymore. But you can't find the light.

You're so tired, and you can't find the light.

They always said there would be a—

* * *

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
__**2**__**nd**__** Person**__: ...written in second person._

_This one's pretty short, but I wanted the focus to be on that moment after she says goodbye to Liara. Comments/criticisms welcome! Thanks for reading :)_


End file.
